


Lost in Transition

by kadielkrieger, qthelights



Category: CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Anger, Angst, Foursome, Foursome - M/M/M/M, M/M, Multi, Party, Past Relationship(s), Protectiveness, Threesome, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-25
Updated: 2010-03-25
Packaged: 2017-10-30 05:45:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kadielkrieger/pseuds/kadielkrieger, https://archiveofourown.org/users/qthelights/pseuds/qthelights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Past and current relationships collide and Jensen finds something he didn't even know he was looking for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost in Transition

As parties go, it could be better.    
  
It could also be much, much worse. As of yet no one has vomited a Jaeger bomb into the corner pocket of his pool table, so it already beats the last shindig he threw.    
  
Really, there's nothing to suggest that this isn't an awesome party. His friends are all here - most of them anyway. Apparently having a party 'because of hiatus' is good enough reason for them to come celebrate. Then again, it's not like they'd get to see him any other time. Even Jeff is in from out of town, a rare break from filming whatever-the-hell he's filming right now. The best part is that Jensen can legitimately have a hangover for the rest of next week, if he so chooses.    
  
Of course Jared is the notable exception, and maybe that's why the party doesn't feel quite as loud or big - it's missing the loudest, biggest part. Jensen can already tell this will be one of those things Jared never lets him live down, but it's just not Jensen's fault that the world doesn't revolve around Jared's schedule. And he sure as shit isn't gonna pass up an opportunity to get stinking drunk just because Padalecki has to go see his momma every five minutes. Jensen refuses to feel guilty about it.    
  
Christian's around here somewhere, probably with Steve in tow or a girl up against a wall. He's already made it clear he plans to drink Jensen under the table. Which may well happen. Jensen will at least have his dignity in the morning. More than Chris will anyway, and he'll call that a win.    
  
Loud music thumps through the walls, complete with a catchy baseline that has him bobbing his head; a sea of gorgeous girls flows around him, each of them giving him the once-over as they eddy on by. Jensen wonders just how he managed to end up in this life again. It always hits him in these surreal moments, surrounded by musicians and actors and Hollywood's more down-to-earth but still undeniably pretty people, that this is not where he had thought he'd end up.    
  
It kicks weird feelings around him, swirly dust tornadoes that froth up his stomach. Maybe that's just the jello-shot Misha handed him.    
  
Speaking of Misha, Jensen has no idea where he is, though he's pretty sure he was meant to be bringing him a beer to make up for the jello. That was fifteen minutes back though and Jensen sorely needs a drink. He surveys the crowd in front of him, nearest and dearest and total fucking strangers, all having a fine old time.    
  
No Misha. Not that he keeps tabs on him or anything, because he doesn't. He just wants that beer.    
  
Chris sidles up beside him, throws an arm around his shoulders. "Hey pretty boy, what's up?"    
  
"Misha and my beer, apparently," Jensen replies, ignoring the name but sliding an answering arm around Chris' waist.    
  
Chris pulls his arm away almost instantly. "Whatever, man. Get your own beer. Don't rely on flaky bits of ass for the important shit."    
  
Jensen doesn't know what crawled up Kane's ass and died. Well, that's not entirely true. He's been shitty since he found out Jeff was here. Whatever. He'll work it out of his system soon enough. Jensen just rides it out. "Like alcohol?"    
  
"Damn straight. A man needs to be in charge of his own booze. Angel-eyes ain't stable enough to be bringing you a steady stream of beer."    
  
"I think he'll manage." Jensen finds himself on the defensive all of a sudden, and he doesn't really know why.    
  
"Whatever, man," Chris says and shrugs. "I'm not the one without a beer." Chris shakes his head at Jensen solemnly, like giving up on the already deranged, and then apparently declares the conversation over. He raises his long-neck in mock salute as he steps backwards and disappears into the living room.    
  
Jensen pulls out his phone.    
  
  
* * *    
  
It's odd to be wandering around Jensen's house without him in tow.    
  
Still, Misha's been here often enough now that he could find his way almost anywhere by simple touch.    
  
Everything's off though; the gentle earth tones splashed across Jensen's walls have been turned flat by the bright, burning lights of the party. Upstairs, the story's altogether different - the shadows cut deeper and breaths pulled more shallow, and Misha's just glad that he doesn't meet anyone in the hallway that he'd rather not see.    
  
Even if he can't put his finger on why he doesn't want to see them.    
  
Maybe because he doesn't want to explain why he knows the third door on the left leads to the guest suite. Or that he's never had occasion to use it. Or why he's trailing Jeff so closely.    
  
With the soft click of tumblers falling into place, Misha sighs. Now, nothing less than solid oak stands between him and Jeff and the cacophony buzzing up the stairs. The hum dies down to a blessedly subtle thump of steady bass bleeding through the carpet and between Misha's toes. Jeff made no move to flick the lights on when he commandeered the room, Misha either, and so the only illumination is the warm wash of gold sliding under the door, the seep of streetlight through curtains.    
  
Jeff seems to know the layout just as well as he does, because even in the half-light he easily finds and sprawls into the lone armchair near the window, joint in one hand, glass of amber liquid in the other. Ice clinks from within, the rings wrapped around his fingers tapping from without.    
  
Misha hesitates.    
  
There are no rules for this beyond those of common decency, and save the fact that fucking one's co-star is neither common nor decent in the strictest sense, Misha can't help but wonder whether sneaking off with one of Jensen's friends for possibly questionable purposes constitutes a breach of their completely unspoken agreement. Unfortunately, the nature of unspoken agreements is exactly that, unspoken, and he hasn't a clue what Jensen would or would not think about him fucking someone else under his roof.    
  
All Misha knows is how he would feel.    
  
So instead of sprawling across the bed, he settles cross-legged on the floor, back flattened to the wall beneath the window and drapes ruffling his hair. It's some bastardized parody of an eager child awaiting his lesson, but at least it's not openly suggestive.    
  
Instead of knowledge, Jeff passes him the joint.    
  
Given a choice, Misha would much rather spend a luxuriously slow amount of time picking Jeff apart to see what makes him tick, but contrary to popular opinion, these offers don't fall in his lap every day and he's found that the truth of a person often surfaces in the most unlikely ways. He found Jensen's in the bottom of a bottle of tequila, Jared's in a frosty pre-dawn doze with Sadie drooling on his stomach. His own is a riddle that has yet to be written. This strikes him as a way to discover the why of Jeff.    
  
It also strikes him that he's feeling particularly devil-may-care right this moment. Itchy and uncomfortable in his own skin, in Jensen's house, surrounded by Jensen's best ever through-the-depths-of-hell buddies.    
The irony isn't lost on him.    
  
So he accepts the escape Jeff offers, unsure if he means the joint or Jeff himself and not really caring either way.    
  
It's only polite, after all.    
  
"So you think you've got what it takes?" Jeff says, voice tight around a practiced exhale.    
  
"I've always risen to the occasion before," Misha responds, even though he's at a loss as to what exactly Jeff is referring to. He became a master in the art of prolonging bullshit to serve his own ends so many years ago he can't remember a time he didn't have the instinct. He feels his brows pull together, an unfortunate reflex, and he sniffs at the moist paper caught between his fingertips.    
  
He can already tell the blend's more potent than anyone can get stateside without a prescription, but that has little bearing on the warm tendrils curling up his spine, making him loose and languid and entirely too agreeable. That he blames entirely on Jeff – the curve of Jeff's fingers, the slow stretching grin, the way he rubs the glass against his lips before he sucks down another sip.    
  
So when Jeff slides a smile his way and grunts, Misha's not sure whether to smoke or pass the joint back untouched. He's fairly certain he doesn't need an herbal mood enhancer gumming up the investigative works.    
  
"Sound pretty sure of yourself," Jeff says and pulls another long draught of whiskey from his glass.    
  
Misha grins up at him and shrugs. "Any reason I shouldn't be?"    
  
The laugh starts as a twinkle tucked into the corner of Jeff's eye, but quickly blooms into a rib-cracking sort of full body shudder. "Oh _sweetheart_ , the things you don't know."    
  
And really, Misha knows he ought to bristle, ought to pursue the thought down whatever dark and inevitably thorny path it takes him, because that's where he knows the answers must live. But then Jeff tongues at his top lip, an errant drop of liquor falling prey to the wet slide, and he simply forgets. It's what makes his mind up for him, in the end - the desire to engage such a creature in the oldest kind of hunt.    
  
Maybe, just maybe, that's where Jeff's truth lives. And if it isn't, well, so be it. He'll have learned  _something_  all the same.    
  
He unfurls his legs from under him and slides to his knees, shuffles forward between Jeff's knees. The front of the chair presses against his thighs, solid and welcome. Jeff is watching him, more than a hint of predatory humour glinting in his gaze. He'd be lying if he said it didn't do things to him. Then again, Misha's never had a problem with lying.    
  
He steadies himself with a hand on Jeff's thigh, leans in and presses the joint to the pink of Jeff's lips.    
  
Jeff's fingers wrap tight around his hand, holding it in place, and Misha smiles up the length of his arm, reveling in the rub of gently-callused skin across his knuckles. Time slows at Jeff's inhale, his ribs bumping against Misha's elbow as he pulls the smoke deep. At the count of twelve, Jeff whips his hand away and Misha almost loses the joint in a shower of coal and ash. For half a second, he's thinking about how pissed Jensen's going to be about the brand-spanking-new patch of singed carpet, but then Jeff's other hand fists in the front of his shirt, hauling him in until the firm press of Jeff's lips seal over his own with an almost violent exhale.    
  
Misha's not expecting it and has to fight to keep from coughing the smoke back over. Even so he takes time to catalog the subtleties of Jeff's aftershave as it wars with the weed for dominance, the scratch of stubble across his chin. It's so distracting he nearly forgets to inhale - until he doesn't.    
  
His eyes slide shut as he breathes in the smoke, takes it with the air from Jeff's lungs. The suddenness of the act burns his throat, but he holds it, lets the need for oxygen overpower him before letting it go in a shaky tremor. He's still only millimeters from Jeff's mouth, held in place by the fist wrapped in his shirt, and he can feel the smoke echo back to him as it bounces off proximate skin.    
  
When Misha opens his eyes, a pause taken to let himself settle, he's greeted by Jeff's lazy smile, a wide expanse of blinding teeth, clearly amused by the successful advantage he's taken. Clearly approving that Misha has just gone with it, hasn't pulled away or uttered protest.    
  
Misha thinks Jeff is altogether way too sure of himself. Even if he does have every damn reason to be.    
  
And so he leans in.    
  
Were he of another mind, Misha might've already snatched up what was so plainly on offer, but he isn't or wasn't, and it's Jeff so there's a moment of hesitation, a decision hung in the balance before he flings his misbegotten caution to the wind and takes Jeff's lips with a purpose. It gives him the illusion of control at the very least, a fevered daydream that spins out and dies when Jeff tugs him in tighter, hand splayed wide between his shoulder blades, Jeff's jaw working slower as his tongue slips out and finds the roof of Misha's mouth in a slow, seductive slide. There's no manhandling or ferocity about it, but Jeff reclaims his mantle as surely as he does anything.    
  
The hand caught up in his shirt slackens its grip, and Misha feels it shift, gliding up across the planes of his chest until fingers seat in the hollow behind his ear. Jeff's rings are a cool scrape against sensitive skin and Misha hisses in spite of himself, Jeff's grin slipping wider against his lips.    
  
It would be infuriating if it weren't completely turning him on, arousal mixing with the pleasant buzz of the drug invading his system, the cocksure ownership of his mouth, the room, the party beyond.    
  
Jeff's mouth is wet and wanton, pockets of cold where the whiskey has traced its path. His whiskers scratch at Misha's face, sharp and feathery all at once. Misha lift his hand off Jeff's thigh, held in place firmly enough not to lose his balance. He threads his fingers into the scruff of Jeff's almost-beard, reveling in the way his fingertips slide through it, the way Jeff's breath hitches as he scratches blunt nails down the side of his jaw.    
  
Then and only then does Misha unearth what he's truly after. Jeff surges up in a rush of oddly perfumed air and want, their lips smacking apart with a sigh and a whimper as Jeff crowds him. He shuffles a step, then two, until the edge of the bed nudges at the backs of his knees and they hinge obediently. Misha remembers the joint just in time, and even though it sprays the comforter with a tiny rain of sparks, none of them flare, so he figures at the worst he'll end up replacing some bedding.    
  
Jeff stands between his knees, sipping at his whiskey, staring down with a telltale quirk to his lips. Misha stares back, not with defiance, but with a sweet, sharp burn coiling in his belly. He has no idea what the hell Jeff intends to do with him now.    
  
"Jensen said you were a handful," Jeff says, his voice low and even, but shot through with more gravel than Jensen could ever hope to muster.    
  
Misha smirks then, cozies the joint against his lips and takes a deep, satisfying pull. The smoke builds a haze up between them and through it he watches Jeff set his glass aside, hears the clink as the tumbler meets the bedside table. When he exhales, Jeff slides through the cloud like some fantastical figment of his imagination, all beautiful bronzed skin and sinew, something Misha can't quite pin down until the mattress beside him gives and there's a warm body flushed against his flank.    
  
Misha hands the joint back to Jeff, who takes it between his fingers, tip flaring orange and bright in the darkened room as he drags its bounty into his lungs. Jeff's thigh is hot against his own, and there's something thrumming between them. He isn't sure if it's the weed or his self-admitted reverence for what the man beside him effortlessly embodies, or if perhaps he's getting off a little on the idea of letting Jeff own him so easily. Especially when part of him knows that they shouldn't be, given where they are.    
And who they're here for.    
  
"If you think I'm only a convenient magnolia, you're sorely mistaken," Misha says, some monstrosity caught between a chuckle and a giggle sticking in his throat.    
  
Jeff's eyes narrow and he drops the rest of the joint into the dregs of his whiskey with a sizzle. He doesn't seem confused, though Misha might expect him to be. It's not like they've spent enough time in the same city - not to mention the same room - for Jeff to follow. He does though, the flash of comprehension and following smirk wakens something strange in the back of Misha's brain.    
  
But Jeff chooses the other route. "I think you're looking pretty convenient right now."    
  
Jeff settles a hand on Misha's knee and slides it tantalizingly slow up his thigh. And Misha can't even begin to protest, words having traitorously deserted him. Jeff's hand gets to his hip, and as if by some twist of fate or divine intervention or perhaps even eternally bad luck, it's right then that Misha's phone starts to vibrate, buzzing directly between his thigh and Jeff's hand.    
  
Of course.    
  
When Misha finally extricates the cell from his pocket Jeff's fingers slide into the void left behind, smoothing denim and swirling small, soothing circles against his hipbone. Between the booze and the pot he's already mellowed nearly beyond coherence, his brain tripping off in random, fuzzy directions. It's not until the phone buzzes a second time against his palm that he sighs and touches the screen to wake it up.    
  
[10:32:08] Acklantis: The fuck?    
[10:35:22] Acklantis: Where the hell r u?    
  
Misha smiles in spite of himself, not that he should, not that he has any right to. Still, even in the crushing swarm of well-wishers downstairs, Jensen noticed his absence.    
  
"Jensen," he says to Jeff, shaking his phone awkwardly, and feels the hum against the side of neck, the scratch of whiskers a pleasant burn as an arm bands tight across his waist. Apparently, Jeff could care less about what Jensen might or might not have to say, and as Misha doesn't care either he taps out a perfunctory response.    
  
[10:37:44] Guest suite. High. With Jeff. Handsy fucker.    
  
With the message sent, consequences be damned, Misha loses himself in the heady feel of Jeff filling his senses. Jeff's teeth sink into his throat as his hands roam confidently, briefly pressing against the bulge in Misha's pants and eliciting a whimper that Misha will later swear did not come from his lips.    
  
Jeff's mouth is back on his, Jeff's hands holding and tilting his head in place for easy access. It's slow and so fucking sure, as if they've spent years doing just this, not ten minutes after meeting a half hour before. Misha suspects Jeff has this effect on everyone.    
  
He's so caught up in the lazy teasing slide, the warmth radiating off Jeff, the strong arms enveloping him, that he doesn't even notice the minutes it takes for his phone to buzz against his leg where it fell earlier.    
  
[10:43:13] Acklantis: Ok.    
[10:43:57] Acklantis: ??    
  
Which maybe makes Misha smile just a little more.    
  
[10:44:32] Here kitty, kitty.    
  
As soon as he hits send, Misha turns the thing off. Either Jensen will come or he won't, and regardless of what the outcome might be, Misha intends to enjoy himself. He angles into Jeff's body, tangling their legs together. Five minutes from now, he's sure he'll be wishing for fewer layers and more time, more booze to keep him bobbing lazily in the currents Jeff's rippling on the air. Five minutes and Jensen won't have shit to say about anything.    
  
It doesn't take that long. It doesn't even take two, and Misha wonders how long he stood outside the door before he sent the last message.    
  
The doorknob turns and the door opens hesitantly. Light from the hallway spills in as bright as the sun, peals of laughter and music flooding up from downstairs. A Jensen-shaped shadow slides inside and the door clicks softly closed.    
  
Misha pulls his mouth away from Jeff's and they both turn to where Jensen stands inside the door, eyes wide and black as he adjusts to the lack of light in the room.    
  
Jeff's arms stay where they are around Misha's waist, but his hand slips down to palm at Misha's cock through his jeans. It's an obvious play, Jeff letting Jensen know he can have whoever he wants whenever he wants, and being used that way makes  _Misha_ want in all the wrong ways. He simply cannot help the groan that rattles in the base of his throat or the way his hips jerk up into Jeff's hand.    
  
Just like he can't help but notice the way Jensen's eyes flicker from Jeff's hands up to Misha's face at the noise. The way Jensen stays where he is. Says nothing.    
  
Jeff finds his tongue first. "I taught you better, Jensen," he murmurs, then licks a wet patch onto Misha's collarbone. "Shouldn't leave your toys lying around."    
  
As much as he'd like to protest that he's not anyone's toy, in this particular instance he feels like it may well be an incorrect assertion. There's also the fact that protestations could interfere with the hands currently guiding him into a pleasant state of loose-limbed bliss, and that would be very, very unfortunate. Yet, Misha can feel the tension skittering off Jensen in wild, overwhelming waves, even if he can't place the cause - not really. Apparently though, there's a history he's not been made aware of until just now. It leaves him flying a little blind, but Misha's always been reckless with things that don't really matter.    
  
Sometimes, he's reckless with things that do.    
  
The silence strung out between them makes a hard left toward oppressive, so much so that Misha hears Jensen lick his lips, the soft clack of his teeth as they part then snap shut.    
  
Misha's about to say something, despite not really understanding just what exactly is going on. Tension is not his thing, especially when it's interfering with his current state of nirvana. His mind, slow and doped up as it is, however, is not playing ball. It's randomly cycling through alternatives and he's skipped from 'sharing is caring' to something involving action figures which really isn't all that funny and won't do anything to fix the current situation. Saved by the bell seems to be the theme of the night though, as the second Misha opens his mouth, mildly curious as to what his mind is going to push out of it, the clear sound of chiming comes from the vicinity of Jensen's pants.    
  
Jensen blinks, startled, and shakes his head as if clearing something from his vision before he reaches for the phone in his back pocket. His gaze doesn't waiver right up until he has his phone in front of him, sliding a thumb across its surface before he finally looks down.    
  
Misha feels the room sigh in relief, wonders if he should disentangle himself from Jeff's limbs. Wonders why he should wonder that.    
  
***    
  
[10:50:04] CK: Do I look like a bitch, Ackles?    
  
The air bends around the quiet, "Fuck," that slips unbidden between Jensen's lips. And while he only has eyes for the lithe pair of bodies currently writhing like a couple of fucking teenagers in heat all over his good guest linens, he's still sober enough to spare a thought or two for how royally, utterly, and completely screwed he's going to be if Chris manages to hunt them down.    
  
Chris will never understand, and while Jensen appreciates the sentiment - fuck yes, he does - he already has a pretty overbearing older brother to answer to. And Jared.    
  
With any luck, he'll be presumed otherwise engaged and simply left alone    
  
He hopes.    
  
Misha makes that tight, choking sound in the back of his throat that Jensen loves so much and his eyes dart back to the bed.    
  
Shit, he  _is_  otherwise engaged.    
  
He knows he needs to answer. If he doesn't, Chris will plough through that door and all hell will break loose. Jensen  _knows_  this, but the sight in front of him is short-circuiting things in his cerebral cortex. The logic needed to form a reply, to avert the apocalypse of Kane, is simply too hard to reach. The phone stays in his hand but his arm has already fallen to his side. Instead of answering he finds himself taking a hesitant step forward.    
  
Jeff grins at him across the narrow expanse of Misha's chest, and it's awesome in all the ways he remembers - it gets his blood up and makes his cock twitch because even it knows what that smile means. But it's also horrible in all the ways he remembers, especially when Jeff's lips meet Misha's skin, his gaze never once wavering from Jensen's.    
  
Because it's empty. Just fucking.    
  
And he'll be damned if he's going to come over all chick-flicked with  _that_  sprawled and waiting for him, but he can't stop the memories from putting a lump in his throat.    
  
Something must telegraph out, find a home in the twist of his lips or the set of his chin, even though that's the last thing in the world Jensen wants. Before he stamps down whatever it is that's betrayed him, Jeff's grin fades down to something like guilt and he's pulling back, sliding free, and Misha makes another noise that Jensen used to love.    
  
He doesn't even notice when his phone slips between his fingers and falls with a quiet thump onto the floor.    
  
Misha looks confused and rumpled, and Jensen can't help but think it somehow works for him. It isn't his fault, after all; Misha doesn't know the story, and why should he? There's no reason that Jensen should be feeling like he maybe should have said something earlier.    
  
Jeff extricates himself and slides off the bed, slumps back into the armchair in a familiar sprawl. He's all rings and bracelets, black and denim, liquid sex - everything exactly as Jensen left it four years ago, down to the curl of his lip. It tightens something in Jensen's chest and draws into sharp relief just how far he's come.    
  
And how far he hasn't.    
  
Jeff grins at him, but it's wry and strangely regretful. "You didn't say. Sorry, kid." He holds his hands up in the universal signal for backing off.    
  
Misha is glancing between the two of them, brows creasing together. "Wait...huh?"    
  
Apologies are pretty damn useless in the long-run, and Jeff's already reached his quota, so Jensen feels justified letting a bit of his frustration seep out around the edges when he says, "Shouldn't have to," and conveniently forgets to return the smile.    
  
It's the pause between acts and Jensen can feel that knowledge burn beneath his skin, even though he can't put a finger on where the last scene gasped out its denouement. Instead, he goes on instinct, goes with what he knows. Answers are slippery as fucking eels and he hasn't any to offer Misha, much less himself. So he slinks in to straddle Misha's hips and kisses the questions completely and thoroughly away.    
  
It has absolutely nothing to do with Jeff, really it doesn't. Easier to convince himself of that when Misha's lips part willingly beneath his and Jensen tastes the pot, the sharp flavor of whisky on Misha's tongue - easier still when Misha's hands settle on his thighs, fingertips gone to sharp points when he sighs into Jensen's mouth.    
  
It's heady and familiar and just as much of a rush as it always is, even if the taste of Jeff on Misha's skin twists a weird knot in his gut.    
  
He buries the feeling by burying himself into Misha. Digs down underneath his skin and Jeff-flavouring with his tongue down Misha's throat, his hands sliding under the hem of Misha's shirt to splay against the heated skin. Misha is loose-limbed and slithers against him, slides over and around him without moving from under his weight. The fingers that clutch at his hips are a welcome distraction to the swirling in Jensen's head.    
  
He wishes they'd shared the pot. Wishes Misha'd brought him that beer.    
  
Misha is making jerky little movements against the insides of Jensen's thighs, trying to increase friction but not in a position to negotiate it. The power of the position, the lack of power in Misha's current state of being, goes to Jensen's head and cock simultaneously. The knowledge that Jeff is sitting only feet away, watching him take back his playthings, watching him devour Misha, and the way Jensen knows that he looks - back curved, thighs splayed, hips beginning a slow grind against his captive - might be what does him in.    
  
Because he isn't going to stop. He's going to fuck Misha on the bed in his guest room with Jeff unable to touch him, to touch them, with a whole houseful of guests downstairs and the strange kick of  _something_  in his chest.    
  
Jensen reaches back, catches the cotton spread across his shoulder blades, and starts to strip it off.    
  
Just his fucking luck, of course, that he's half-tangled in his shirt when the door bangs open hard enough it rattles the stop screwed into the baseboard with a metallic twang. He blinks at the sudden splash of light from the hallway cutting across the carpet, squints when the overhead light clicks on.    
  
He hears someone mutter, "Christ, Jensen," before the light clicks off and the door slams.    
  
Misha shifts beneath him again, flesh rubbing in all sorts of intoxicating ways, and even though Jensen knows that wasn't just someone, he ignores it in favor of tugging his shirt off the rest of the way and savoring the way Misha's fingers stripe hot against his stomach.    
  
The second time the door bangs open, Chris does them all the courtesy of leaving the light alone.    
  
Chris slams the door shut, him on the inside now and faces the three of them, stance wide and body apprehensively twisted with tension.    
  
Jensen has his wits about him enough to at least think the ' _fuck_ '.    
  
Misha glances calmly over his shoulder to see, a bemused and openly curious expression flitting across his features. Jensen's own neck is craned towards the door.    
  
"What in the fuck?" Chris growls.    
  
Jeff snorts from his viewing post in the chair, and that garners Chris' full attention. "Calm down, Christian," Jeff drawls, pulling Chris' full name out like taffy. "Nothing you need to be concerned about."    
  
Jensen knows the second Jeff speaks that this is not going to go down well. Chris doesn't  _do_  pacified.    
  
Then again, Jeff has never really given a flying fuck about whose tail-feathers he ruffles or how askew he leaves them. And Chris has always made his opinion of Jeff's proclivities loudly and vehemently clear, made no apologies for his foundless accusations that Jeff lacks anything remotely resembling a soul.    
  
When Chris eats up the distance in three quick strides, Jensen's already begun mentally preparing himself for a trip to the emergency room.    
  
He should know better than to be surprised by anything Misha does, but Jensen can't help it when Misha leans up, flushing their chests together at odd angles and mutters at him, "Be thankful you're pretty and worth the high maintenance bullshit, Jensen."    
  
A smile creeps across his lips in spite of the situation and the imminent threat of violence, so he doesn't find time to sputter out his indignation before he's dumped unceremoniously onto the bed and Misha pushes himself up into a dishevelled pillar of awesome between Jeff and Chris.    
  
Jensen sometimes wonders just how much Misha there is in Castiel, because even wearing a rumpled green button-down and a pair of distressed jeans that got there by way of wear rather than a fancy pair of fashionista shears - and fucking barefoot for God's sake – Misha slips into his authority like a second skin, no billowing trench coat required.    
  
Misha must judge Chris the more dangerous of the two, because it's him he faces, back to Jeff. Jeff who hasn't moved a muscle, lifted so much as a finger, or removed the smirk from his lips in the face of Kane stalking towards him.    
  
Jensen is interested in how this is going to play out, even if there's no way in this situation that he can win.    
  
Misha simply stares at Chris serenely, unperturbed by the glower leveled at him. He raises a hand up, hovers it near Chris' chest but doesn't set it down, as if anyone, let alone him, can stop Christian Fucking Kane when he's got an inkling in his head that there's some blood that needs spilling.    
  
Chris' eyebrow is raised in incredulous rage. "Seriously?"    
  
"I'm always serious," Misha replies with a little shrug of his shoulders.    
  
"I hear otherwise." Chris' voice has gone tight.    
  
Between one breath and the next, Jensen finds himself wishing once again for a flask or a bottle of beer or another joint, anything to take the edge off. Chris is full of shit. The only person he knows who has any interest - vested or not - in Misha's many personality quirks is sitting right the fuck here inside Jensen's skin.    
  
He hasn't said anything of the sort.    
  
"Can't imagine who'd be saying such things," Misha says quietly, certainly, but his eyes flick sideways to meet Jensen's for a split second before they land on Chris again. "I hear you find mangling the faces of Jen's friends a riveting pastime. Suppose we might both do well to reconsider the stock we put in what  _they_  say."    
  
Chris deflates ever so slightly and transfers the weight of his glare from Misha to Jeff.    
  
It's then that Misha lets his hand finally fall.    
  
Chris startles, looking down at Misha's hand on his breastbone before jerking his head back up to look at Misha directly. "What the hell, man?"    
  
"Aww, c'mon baby, don't be like that," Misha grins seductively as he closes the space between them and slides his free hand around Chris' waist.    
  
Jensen's feels his eyebrows arch up his forehead in surprise. He wants to glance at Jeff, to see what he makes of this, see if someone else feels like they just fell down the rabbit hole, but he can't seem to take his gaze off Misha and Chris in front of him.    
  
Chris barks a short sharp laugh straight from his belly and Jensen lets out a breath he didn't even know he was holding. "You're fucking nuts, boy," Chris says to Misha, splitting into the grin he uses to melt girls' panties. Jensen has seen that look, a lot. This is uncharted context though. He's not even sure there's a map for it to be off of.    
  
Of course, Misha's never really had use for maps. Things like longitude and latitude are relegated to concepts for other people to concern themselves with. Ninety percent of the time, Jensen would swear on his momma's grave that Misha operates on a highly alternative plane of existence. Some people might find it frustrating, even annoying, but Jensen - he's ashamed to say he sometimes lives for those surprises, counts on them to keep him sharp and shaken instead of settled. It's why they work. Or why they would if there was any kind of  _they_  to worry about.    
  
But there isn't, and there's as much chance of Chris trying to snatch Misha up as there is of a blizzard rolling through Dallas in the middle of August. For all the other things Chris may be, he's loyal to a fucking fault and he'd never hone in on something, someone that Jensen's already marked as his.    
  
Not that Misha is, he's not. He's - an eternal work-in-progress at this point and likely to stick in the in-between forever. Jensen's good with that.    
  
So when Misha smiles his best toothy smile and says, "Well, yes. But I'm an endlessly charming basket case," then sweeps a lazy hand up the length of Chris' spine, Jensen just leans back on his elbows to watch.    
  
Chris glances over at Jensen. The anger is still simmering, Jensen can see it in the way that the tendons in his neck flex, but there's definitely amusement in there too. And while Jensen knows that Chris can hold a grudge like nobody's business, his spur of the moment anger is a flash in the pan. He must see something in Jensen's face, or perhaps even in the faux-casual way Jensen's now propping himself up on the bed, something that is giving him latitude anyway, because Chris turns back to Misha and wraps his fingers tight around Misha's hipbones.    
  
"You wanna play that game, Collins? Really?"    
  
* * *    
  
Chris has no idea what in the hell just happened, or how. One minute he was about to punch the ever living shit out of Jeff - Fuck 'Em and Fuck 'Em Up - Morgan, and the next Misha is standing in front of him, taking up his entire field of vision, an arm around his waist and long fingers warm and flat against his breastbone.    
  
Misha raises an eyebrow, slides the hand resting on his chest slowly up the curve of his neck, fingers sliding and tangling tight in the hair at Chris' nape. "I've made my opening gambit. I'd say the game is well and truly already in play, wouldn't you?"    
  
And fuck it all, even though he knows that he's being played, that he's being distracted from his goal of bloodying up Jeff's face, he can't help but grin at the complete and utter ridiculousness of  _Misha_  playing chicken with  _him_ .    
  
Jensen snorts from where he's sprawled on the bed and Chris spares him a quick glance. If anyone is gonna have a problem with this, it's gonna be Jensen. Jensen might not know what the hell he has going on with Misha, playing it glib and casual, but Chris knows from the endless telephone calls of "Misha did this," and "Misha's coming by later" that the boy has it bad.    
  
That usually means trouble when it comes to Jensen. So damn pretty that everyone wants a piece. So damn naïve that they usually got it.    
  
For the moment though, Jensen seems fine - interested, in fact, in what is playing out in front of him. When Chris looks back, Misha actually smirks at him, fucking  _smirks_ , like he's not twirling a red flag in front of an angry ox. And it is so fucking on. If the kid wants to play in the big leagues, he's gonna have to put his money where his smart-assed mouth is.    
  
"You're a cocky sonofabitch, you know that?" he says and yanks hard on Misha's hips.    
  
Misha stumbles into him, despite being the one to start all this, and his elbow jars sharply into Chris' ribs.    
  
He ignores it, concentrating instead on the feel of Misha half-hard against his thigh. The way the breathy escape of air through Misha's lips is definitely laced with a whimper of arousal at the contact.    
  
Chris knows not to lose his momentum now, not when he has his kill dangling on a hook before him, it's the pivotal moment in the chase, and he knows it well. So he strengthens his grip, grinds his hips slow and hard against Misha's groin and crushes his mouth to Misha's before the other can even un-flutter his eyelashes.    
  
Happily, Misha responds in kind, his tongue fierce in Chris' mouth. Of course, if this is all it takes to knock Misha off his game? The kid ain't even worthy of Jensen.    
  
He can't quite set Morgan aside though, not even in favor of dealing with the more immediate threat to Jen's damn peace of mind. Tall, dark, and deserving-of-a-beatdown looks to be slithering under a warm rock and feigning boredom like the good god-damned rattlesnake he is. So long as he doesn't get any ideas.    
  
Misha, well, he's a long stretch of trouble. If Chris ever had a lick of doubt about it, the proof's standing right in front of him, humping his leg like a damn dog. But he can't make Jen see it, no matter how straight he lays it out. Mostly, he thinks it's because Misha doesn't know what the fuck he wants. Takes one to know and all, but Chris has at least gotten a damn sight better at figuring what it is he doesn't want.    
  
Doesn't want to see Jen hurt, for starters. Morgan left years worth of scar tissue when he fucked off to become a big movie star, and Chris ain't of the mind - hell, ain't got the time - for Doctor Frankensteining Jensen back into shape again.    
  
So yeah, fuck Collins and his free love social abstraction bullshit. Crushed cheekbones ache just the same whether you've interned for the White House or not.    
  
There are simpler ways to get down to brass tacks though, and showing Jen just how easy Misha gives it up to anyone with a pulse might put them all on the same page of music without the inconvenient ambulances and unwanted attention from the pigs. Shame. He's itching for it, but there's a whole mess of mostly polite company downstairs that doesn't need to be sniffing Jen's dirty shorts. It'll have to do.    
  
Chris plans to show Misha a thing or two. He works his way past the warning voice tickling at the back of his neck, the one trying to tell him exactly how bad a notion this is, and goes for the throat. He also aims to kiss Misha breathless like all those sweet barflies with their quivering thighs and cigarette-scented hair just because he can. Ultimately, the goal is always to work his magic just as quick and dirty as he does in dressing rooms from here to fucking Poughkeepsie, get Misha on his knees and show Jen what he won't hear.    
  
Turns out Misha's not as cooperative as he thought.    
  
In fact, he's like a damned tidal wave - what Chris took for easy abandon turns slow and fierce and completely fucking focused. For half a minute Chris wonders if he's finally managed to bite off more than he's able to choke down, but when Misha's fingers wrap up in his hair and pull hard enough to sting his scalp, when Misha makes him spit moans right alongside the nails, it's all the proof he needs.    
  
Then there's a tongue against his throat, wriggling like a netted bluegill, and it feels good until Misha laughs right in his fucking ear and says, "Doesn't taste red," on a breath too even for Chris' liking.    
  
He should shove Misha off, put him down with a fist to the gut after all, but then Misha does some crazy shit to his neck, sucking and licking and biting down hard enough to leave marks. And if he's honest, it feels damn good. Good enough that he's starting to strain at the zip of his denims.    
  
Chris loops his arms around Misha's waist and pulls him closer. Normally, Misha would probably have a good couple of inches on him, but the crazy hippy is bare-footed, and with Chris wearing his boots - the boots that Jensen fondly calls him a fuckin' red-necked old Okie for wearin' all over town - they're coming up even. With the height diminished and the fact that Misha is nowhere near as built as he is, tall and lean and not built for tusslin' the way Chris is, he can almost imagine it's a slender-hipped bit of pussy he's haulin' into his arms.    
  
But then Misha's mouth is back, hot and deliberately fucking lazy on his and there's stubble burning a rash against Chris' cheek, a cock pressing hard and insistent against his stomach, and he remembers that Misha ain't no girl.    
  
It's never bothered Chris where he gets his kicks. Just as long as there's a money shot in there somewhere. If the body he's working on is male or female or just this side of long-horned cattle it doesn't really matter. Though he has to admit, he does like it when they're lookers. And despite what he thinks of Misha and his intentions towards Jen, the boy is fuckin' pretty as sin He's just sayin', he can see why Jensen would want it.    
  
And that's just gonna make it easier to show Jen why he's a bad idea.    
  
Misha squirms against him, and his breath is starting to rasp when they break for breath. And then Misha's nibbling at his jaw like it's a piece of corn on the cob and damned if he doesn't hone in on one of Chris' kinks like he's been there before.    
  
The moan that lodges in Chris' throat before it slides up in sinful reverberation is not even slightly for show. "Fuck," he grits through his teeth on the back of a hiss. Because,  _really_ .    
  
It's turning him on in all the right ways, so much so that he's momentarily distracted from where he is, and why he's there in the first place. That is until he hears the low voice come from over behind Misha's shoulder, demanding and sure in its pathetically couched casualness.    
Just one word.    
  
"Jensen."    
  
And Chris sees red.    
  
He knows the tone - shit, heard it before a time or two when they were all playing at trying to be nice. Back in the day, he hadn't recognized, or had been too fucked up himself to care what it meant. Jeff pushing himself away from the table at some restaurant trailing Jensen's name behind him like a lure is all he really remembers.    
  
Well, that and the fact it'd been the night he finally found out. Unlucky as fuck time to need to take a piss. Jensen'd pushed out of a stall with a sleeve against his chin, Morgan tumbling after with a smug smile plastered all over his face.    
  
Sometimes Chris wonders if the secret of it was what's stuck in his teeth all these years. But when he hooks his chin over Misha's shoulder and sees Jensen slide, already on his knees and just a hair above crawling like a fucking bitch in heat, he knows better.    
  
Morgan's hands find the zip of Jensen's fly and that's it. Ain't no way in hell Chris' going to be the only one seeing red tonight. He's already winding himself up to tear straight through Misha with his teeth if he still seems keen on interfering when Collins smacks him on the ass.    
  
"Eyes on the prize, Buffalo Bill." Misha might as well have snapped fingers in his face like a petulant patron demanding the check.    
  
Which yeah. It's one thing to be distracting him with a bit of ass when he's momentarily angry, not knowing if he has any solid reason to be going in swinging. But for Misha to be side-tracking him when he actually does have a reason, the reason that is currently settling itself on his knees between Jeff's whore-spread legs? Not gonna happen.    
  
Whip-crack fast Chris lets go of Misha's waist and has his hands up on his chest, shoving away angrily.    
  
But Misha apparently doesn't know what's good for him and the fucker actually pushes back.The strength behind it's so surprising that he actually backs the hell up, lets Misha move him the five or so steps it takes for his back to hit the door with a loud  _thumpf_  that has Chris' breath knocking out of his lungs.    
  
" _Jesus Christ_ , Kane," Misha snaps at his ear, his voice low and hitting what Chris vaguely knows is his angel register. "Stop being such a fucking cowboy and pay attention."    
  
Which is exactly what he's been doing. Is exactly why he's about to go redneck on the situation, fer fucks sake.    
  
But then he hears the low breathy moan that comes from the other side of the room.    
  
From Jensen.    
  
Jensen who is on his knees, but is twisted around to watch with eyes blown large and black. It's almost enough to let him ignore the fact that Jeff has his pants unzipped, cock out, blood-swollen and obscene as he lazily strokes himself, rings flashing as he pushes and pulls the head of his cock between his fisted fingers mere inches from Jensen's face.    
  
Because despite that, Jensen isn't watching Jeff.    
  
He's watching  _them_ .    
  
This time when Chris pushes, Misha goes easily, letting himself be manhandled around and into the wall, his shoulders meeting the sheet-rock with another solid thump that rattles the door in its frame and tears a sound up Jensen's throat Chris could swear he's only heard in the dirtiest, low budget pornos. Hell, he should be happy as a pig in shit that Jensen's not paying Morgan any mind, and he would be - fuck yes, he would - if not for all the inconvenient confusion.    
  
He's thought on it a time or two, never with any sort of intent to follow through. Who wouldn't? Jensen's pretty as the day is long and ain't no man ever met him that didn't spare a second to think what it'd be like to slide his dick between those sweet lips. Hell, he's chased a dozen or so off himself.    
  
They've never been that though, and Jensen was his best fucking friend before he'd had a chance to turn it into something else.    
  
Now though, it feels like Jensen's changing the rules.    
  
Maybe just for tonight, maybe forever. Either way, Chris is in no mood to be looking gift horses in the mouth. Doesn't mean he won't be having words with Collins though, because this ain't a right way to treat Jensen when his heart's set.    
  
So yeah, he gets right up in Misha's face, because you should look a man in the eye if you're gonna fuck 'em, even if you only want to fuck him over. "You get off on someone eyeballin' you?"    
  
Misha's tongue swipes slow across his lower lip, but his gaze darts to Jensen before he nods. "You have met me, I thought that was a given," Misha says, then laughs quietly, his voice dipping into conspiratorial territory. "One has nothing to do with the other, though."    
  
If Chris weren't so wrapped up in his own head, he'd have seen it coming, but he is, so when Misha kisses him again, open-mouthed and sloppy, it catches Chris off-balance.    
  
He's kissing back with a fervour that belies the situation before he even knows what the hell is happening. The moan that skitters up out of Misha's mouth and into his own at the taking he's doing is nearly enough to undo him.    
  
They're back against the wall and he has Misha pinned in hard, forgetting the options he was weighing up in the unexpected need to make Misha fly apart at the seams.    
  
He pulls his mouth away from Misha's lips, plants his teeth in against his jaw instead and bites down hard enough to sting. The gasp that echoes from Misha and Jensen at the same time nearly derails him again, but he clings with his fingernails to Misha's hips, sets himself back on track.    
  
Misha is squirming but Chris keeps him in place with his pelvis, moves his hands to either side of Misha's face and holds him where he wants him. Bites back to Misha's ear and sucks the lobe between his lips quick and dirty, flicks it with his tongue. It's only when he lets the flesh slip from his mouth that he drops his voice down to danger level and growls into Misha's ear. "You and me ain't done, kid."    
  
"I wasn't aware we'd started,  _kid_ ," Misha says, and it might bite a bit more if he wasn't already breathing hard against the side of Chris' neck. "Had I known, I'd have been trying harder."    
  
Then those freakishly long fingers slide down between their bodies, making quick work of belt buckle and button and zip, and fuck if they don't feel just as good around his dick as he thought they would - because if Collins takes anything seriously, this is it. Not that Jen's been flapping his jaw about it, they were both raised right after all, but he wouldn't be flapping it about the other shit he has been if he weren't otherwise satisfied.    
  
Even with Misha working him over, it's a strong enough impulse to pull him through mostly coherent.    
  
"Much as I appreciate the sentiment, you shouldn't," Chris says, even though he can't help rocking his hips into Misha's grip. "Jen's near as blood as it gets and the fact that you've got your hand in my fucking pants at all makes me doubt your intentions."    
  
"I'm sorry," Misha breathes, hand clamping down hard enough it trips along that pain-pleasure barrier Chris is so fond of riding. "Didn't know this was just for show."    
  
"The fuck does that mean?"    
  
Misha sighs, a sound so world-weary that Chris can almost understand, even though he knows it's his own fault for causing it, knows Misha's counting to ten and trying to simple it up for the thick-headed asshole kicking him questions. "Jensen's not concerned with my intentions or lack thereof. Unless you're his mother, you've got no business in his business. Ergo, the dick in my hand must be my vivid, disturbingly overactive imagination playing tricks on me again. Or the pot, of course."    
  
Half the time, Chris isn't even sure that Misha knows what the hell he's saying. But the fact that he's beginning to pant and groan at the feel of Misha's fingers playing him so damn right, is proof enough that there ain't no tricks going on.    
  
"Even you ain't that dense, Misha," Chris says, forgoing the distancing of surnames and epithets to be brutally honest. He pokes a finger into Misha's chest angrily. "Just don't fuck with him. Don't fuck him up. This is your one and only warning."    
  
Misha's eyes are wide and full of something Chris can't identify, comprehension or doubt or lord only knows what. It's enough of a reaction to appease him given it isn't just outright scoffing or bravado. The fingers that stutter against his cock tell him even more.    
  
But his voice must have risen with the sentiment behind his words, because it isn't Misha who answers him. It's Jensen.    
  
" _Fuck_ , Chris," Jensen moans from his position on the floor and Chris turns, quick as a covey of spring pheasants flushed from a briar patch, to catch Jensen's gaze. Because the sound that Jensen makes as he says his name is all kinds of broken and fucked up.    
  
And it's dawning on him that maybe Misha has a point.   


**  
Jensen wants to ignore the rush, wishes like hell he could, because it's a brand spanking new brand of crazy that he's managed to avoid up to this point. He can't. It's too much of everything he's never admitted to, will never admit to, out loud.   
  
Then again, the fact that he's getting off on watching Chris paw all over Misha should freak him the fuck out too, but it's not - it's really, really not. If he bothered to think about it, it might be that Chris is it, the only one he trusts enough not to - what?   
  
Fortunately, or unfortunately, he doesn't have a chance to really think about it because Chris is easing Misha's jeans down over his hips, and Misha's making those sounds again, and Jeff's fingers are at the nape of his neck guiding him in with a familiar firmness.   
  
Then the taste of Jeff bursts on his tongue, the scent, but he's still watching and Jeff's still watching. Jensen can tell by the absent way Jeff's petting through his hair, the way his low moans rumble out faster and his hips buck up when Misha writhes in that boneless way he has, chasing his pleasure in the curve of Chris' hand with utter abandon.   
  
Jensen can tell that Misha is stoned; his movements aren't as sharp as they usually are, aren't as deliberate. He's just letting himself be jacked off by Chris, letting himself burn in the fire that Chris is radiating. Jensen can feel it from where he is.   
  
Chris abandons Misha's mouth, and Misha's head sweeps sideways like all the bones in his neck have just decided to up and migrate to parts unknown. Misha's eyes slam shut, but Jensen wishes they weren't closed. Fucked up as it is, he wants to see. Fuck yes, he wants. Then Chris sidles closer, cheek-to-cheek and stares Jensen down, whispers something against Misha's skin that makes his eyes snap open and find their focus.   
  
And the look in his eyes,  _jesus, the look_.   
  
Jensen has to close his eyes, palm his cock and press down hard so as not to come in his pants like he's fucking fifteen again.   
  
"Jensen," Jeff's voice rumbles and Jensen had almost forgotten that he has the man's damn cock in his mouth. He can't look back, he just can't and so he turns back properly in front of Jeff, slides his mouth down over his prize and sucks hungrily. His eyes flicker up to Jeff's, and he's at least looking at him now, thank god. Smiling down at him with a fondness that makes his chest fucking  _ache_.   
  
Jeff slides his hand from the back of Jensen's neck into his hair and cradles his skull almost gently.   
  
Suddenly Jensen isn't sure which is worse - the sight of Chris and Misha or the feel of Jeff's hands. He's scared he might not get out of this alive.   
  
When Jeff shifts, his legs drifting languidly into a wider vee, hips canting at an angle that shoves more of his cock into Jensen's mouth, Jensen's pretty sure he's got his answer. It's right fucking there in the slow slip of hot skin across his lips, the twitch and sigh as Jeff's fingers work against his scalp and Jensen remembers how much he wanted this to be something else. So yeah, Jeff taught him plenty about wishes and horses and beggars and even though he can't see anymore, he can hear Chris winding Misha tighter, the whiskey-slow drawl of the dirty fucking things he plans to do.   
  
It pisses him off a little, even though he knows it shouldn't, knows that Chris would never. Jeff would though, and he's the fucking catalyst for all of this – the lynchpin and puppeteer holding them together, making them dance for his amusement. He's the one that culled Misha from the vast herd of available skin downstairs, and Jensen knows better than to believe it was an accident, no matter what Jeff may claim. It riles Jensen enough that he lets his teeth slip free in a long scrape that pulls a hiss between Jeff's lips.   
  
"None of that, now," Jeff mumbles under his breath, his fingers hot and sure as they slide into place over Jensen's collarbone, his thumbs nudged against his chin hard enough that Jeff's dick pops free with an obscene slurp.   
  
Jensen wipes his mouth against his shoulder because he doesn't trust his hands not to shake, keeps his lashes swung low, refusing to meet the intense fucking stare Jeff's trying to pin him down with. "None of what?" he asks, unable to keep the hum of whatever-the-hell it is he's feeling hemmed in completely.   
  
"I didn't know," Jeff says again, and he sounds so damn sorry that Jensen almost buys it.   
  
Then there are thumbs smoothing over his eyebrows and Jensen chances the glance, sees Jeff's face broken wide open, and he maybe, sort of believes. "You have no idea, do you?"   
  
Jeff blinks slowly, and Jensen thinks he looks almost ill for a second but maybe it's a trick of the light. Probably it is. Jeff opens his mouth as if to say something but then shuts it again.   
  
Jensen raises his eyebrows, because he wants to know. Even though he doesn't, even though he knows it will only rend him open that much more.   
  
Jeff just shakes his head, makes a fluttery gesture that Jensen can't interpret before placing his hand back down on his head. It's as near as an acknowledgment as Jensen thinks he's likely to get, even if it isn't an apology.   
  
There's a choking feeling in his throat that he doesn't trust, so he silences it, pulls Jeff's cock back into his mouth and sucks hard. Wanting this to be over as fast as possible.   
  
Wanting Jeff to know that he's sorry too.   
  
It doesn't take long given the circumstances, and even though Jensen knows Jeff can hold out for fucking ever if he wants, he doesn't. Chris whispers something unintelligible that makes Misha whine brokenly at his back, and Jensen can't help answering, his lips still wrapped tight and caught in a rhythmic slide that falters when Jeff's hands press more insistently, his heel tapping out a frantic cadence next to Jensen's knee.   
  
When Jeff comes, he does it the way he does everything, shamelessly and effortlessly. A ragged, almost bestial sound crawls out of his chest like some creature reborn and Jensen finds himself held in stasis, his nose buried in wiry curls so strongly infused with the scent of Jeff it turns him nostalgic and a little nauseous at the same time.   
  
Because he'll never forget.   
  
He swallows all the same, chokes it down because he doesn't have a choice and sucks Jeff through it until he softens, those big hands of his turning gentle again, searing wide stripes across the back of Jensen's neck.   
  
Jensen leans his cheek against Jeff's thigh, breathing hard and wanting all kinds of things he shouldn't. Mostly he just wants to be that kid again, the one that craved the scrape of steel against his scalp and the simple, overwhelming physicality of Jeff, back when he didn't know better.   
  
It'd be easier than this.   
  
Misha chokes off a moan, a slap of skin against the wall punctuated by a broken  _fuck_  that makes Jensen squeeze his eyes shut against the denim because he really doesn't care that the hands wringing those noises out of Misha aren't his own.   
  
Really.   
  
He turns to look, but then Jeff starts to say his name, he hears the " _Je_ …" form on his lips, hears the demand that dies there. Instead Jeff slides his hand down Jensen's arm, curls his fingers around Jensen's hand where it's braced on his thigh.   
  
And Jensen does look up at that, feels the slight pull on his arm. Not a demand, but a request. A plea. So he allows himself to go there, up and into Jeff's lap. Allows himself to be held there for an extended moment. Jeff knocks his forehead against Jensen's shoulder, stays there for a heartbeat before pulling back, placing his lips in their stead, just a brush; chaste.   
  
And he's looking at Jensen, really seeing him for what feels to Jensen like the very first time.   
  
The smile is rueful, bittersweet. "It would never have worked, kiddo," Jeff says, as if he thinks Jensen needs convincing. Jensen half wishes that he did, that he could be back at that point where there was still some shard of hope. But he isn't, even though he maybe didn't know it until just now.   
  
So he shrugs, too lightly, ignores the diminutive, and nods. "I know."   
  
And that's all that really needs to be said, in the end. Jeff just nods and gives him a gentle push, standing as soon as Jensen moves away. Tucking himself back in and zipping up his fly.   
  
He places a hand on Jensen's cheek and then he's gone, heading toward the door.   
  
Jeff's always been a ghost, drifting through the cracks in people's lives, completely untouchable in all the ways that matter. It's why Jensen lets him go.  _Finally_ , lets him go.   
  
He slumps into the chair Jeff just vacated, soaking up the warmth, the scent - not because he needs it, but because by the time the door snicks closed Jensen feels like a mangled mess of wire shot through with current, and he can't be bothered to cross the two feet between where he's standing and the bed. His dick aches dully, a slow sort of throb that pulses more in his temples than in his balls. The tension wrings out of him with a sigh and he lets his eyelids drift quietly closed.   
  
Twenty seconds is all he gets before Chris murmurs low and rough, soft grunts that catch his attention even though he can't make out a word of what's being said.   
  
That's the same time it really hits home that Chris probably has Misha's come all over his hands, and Jensen doesn't know what to do with that. So he settles for doing nothing for as long as he can, lets his head fall back against soft leather and his heels kick out wherever they choose to land.   
  
The stretch lasts longer, the silence heavier, and when it crumbles around the edges, it's Misha's doing - Misha's hands roving over his shoulders, Misha's lips finding his with a sort of manic tenderness that makes Jensen smile in spite of himself. When Misha's fingers wrap tight around his wrist and tug, Jensen's long past wanting to say anything but yes.   
  
So he does, metaphorically anyway, as he doesn't have the energy to find words right this moment. He lets Misha pull him up onto his feet, eyes closed, swaying into his embrace. His arms slide around him and it suddenly feels so undeniably right in a way that being with Misha has perhaps always felt, but that they, certainly  _he_ , has never acknowledged.   
  
Misha is placing open-mouthed kisses along his jaw, wet and sticky and punctuated by only the lightest scrape of occasional teeth. Jensen gets the feeling he's being soothed, cared for, and the idea is so suddenly foreign that he thinks the relief might make him lose his balance.   
  
He opens his eyes to steady himself, Misha just a warm nuzzling at his throat, and finds himself looking over Misha's shoulder and staring right at Chris.   
  
Chris who is leaning back against the wall, one knee bent, heel of his boot hooked on the running board at the base of the wall, thumbs caught in his jeans pockets. Like a mother fuckin' cowboy.   
  
The look he's giving Jensen, though, is anything but brazen. Jensen isn't even sure he recognizes it, and that in itself is something bizarre and slightly frightening.   
  
An hour ago Jensen would have called bullshit on someone with the stones to say there was anything he didn't know about Chris. He knows how to mimic the sweet-slow smile Chris gives the fans, and knows the off-color commentary running behind it. He knows that when Chris drinks too much whiskey he thinks he's in-fucking-vincible and that after it settles in the pit of his stomach, he pukes and moans like a girl no matter where they are. He knows that when he's holding a good hand, Chris tongues the corner of his mouth chasing something that just ain't there to catch.   
  
This is like nothing else, which is - yeah - fucking weird.  
  
At the same time, he kind of likes the fact that Chris is still able to surprise him. Except when Jensen really looks, he  _can_  place it, can see through the deceptively casual facade to the root.  
  
Chris looks tense, and not in the ass kickin' way.  
  
But then Misha breaks contact, humming thoughtfully and backing him up against the edge of the bed and as he falls, tumbles back onto the bed with a soft  _oomph_ , Jensen can't find the focus to concern himself with Chris' disposition.  
  
Misha knuckles into his ribs - a reassuring sweep of rough skin that's probably meant to be gentle but overshoots in sharp shades of hunger. It's okay. Fuck, it's awesome. Grounding.   
  
They haven't been doing this so long that it doesn't affect him, doesn't tug and tighten at his own straining erection, but at the same time, it's been long enough that Jensen revels in the normalcy, in the familiarity of the way Misha feels. The way Misha's cock hits him at the exact point against his pelvis that it always does, the scent of Misha aroused, somehow tangible and warm, the way Misha's tongue swipes at his mouth to receive entrance.   
  
Jensen has never been one to eroticize routine, and yet there's something in the way that Misha feels pressed up against him that he suddenly feels the need to hold on, to worship in its predictability. Unfortunately, when Jensen tries to latch on, Misha whispers, "You good?" and presses a kiss against his shoulder before he slips away.   
  
Jensen can't stop the catch in his throat as Misha disappears from his immediate reach. It's ridiculous and he blames Jeff entirely, but there is no doubt that what he feels constricting his throat is something akin to loss. It's more emotion than he's willing to acknowledge, and he pushes it back down with a swallow and sharp breath.   
  
He watches as Misha pads back over to Chris, lightly places his fingertips against his wrist. They aren't saying anything, but there's a conversation being had, of that Jensen has no doubt. Chris looks over at him, still tense, still hiding. Only then he's nodding at Misha, just once, before moving past him and heading towards Jensen and the bed.   
  
There are a thousand things wrong with this picture, Jensen thinks, but then the bed dips under the added burden of Chris' weight and he's fumbling, trying to play catch-up again.   
  
All the fire has burned Chris clean through, and with Jeff gone there's not an idle speck of anger left to flare. Now, he's just the kid Jensen remembers from years ago– trying to blend with his cap flipped back and not a shit-kicker in sight. The look in Chris' eyes is every bit of what it was when he'd shouldered up to the bar in LA's best and worst excuse for a honky-tonk and asked his name.   
  
"Hey," is all Chris says out loud, but he's pretty damn expressive when he settles, when he's not distracting people with the fucking fist-waving and threats of bodily harm to their person. Jensen knows he won't ask, would never, and it's awkward as shit to have the decision laid at his doorstep because he's the last person in the world fit to tell anyone what's right.   
  
Instead of hopping to, he decides to err on the side of caution, echoes Chris' "Hey," back at him.   
  
Then Chris smiles, bright even though it wavers around the edges, and tucks a wayward strand of hair behind his ear, says, "Ain't lettin' anyone fuck you over, Jen. Not even you. Not even me," and everything snaps into focus.   
  
Because this is Christian, and he knows him better than nearly anyone in the world, save his own family and maybe Jared, and he would never do anything to intentionally hurt him. Jensen reaches the short distance between them and curls his hand around the back of Chris' neck. He draws him in carefully and kisses his mouth firmly. The kiss is closed-mouth, nothing but a press of lips and a thank you.  
  
Chris gets it, is still and lets him do it, lets them both have the moment. And then, being the fucker that he is, he grins manically, eyes dancing with mirth and a sudden streak of evil. "Still, I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about what to do with your pretty, pretty mouth, Jen."   
  
Jensen rolls his eyes and opens his mouth to retort quick-smart with more than a little bit of sass. But Chris is quicker, and suddenly he's got a mouthful of Chris' tongue, sinfully slick and everywhere at once. It's really only instinct that makes him immediately kiss him back, open his mouth wider and slant sideways for better access.   
  
Of course that doesn't explain the way he moans into Chris' mouth. Nor the way he finds himself twisting his fingers into the cuffs of Chris' long sleeve t-shirt.   
  
If he were worried about being through the looking glass before, this here and now, confirms it, and Jensen figures if it's all just some sort of fevered daydream, he has every right to go with it. So he shuts his brain down, ignores the tiny panicked flutter of logic as it gasps its last, and lets the sea of sensation take him.  
  
The first wave crests in the puff of breath Chris spills across his chin when Jensen slips his thumbs into convenient belt loops, the second when he hooks his ankles behind Chris' knees, and the last as he grabs onto Chris' wrists and rocks up into a halfway bridge, spilling Chris over and pinning him down.  
  
"Coach Lubek'd have your hide for garters, Kane," Jensen says through a smile, and Chris bucks up, tries half-heartedly to break the hold.  
  
"That so? You ask me, I'd wager a guess she'd approve."  
  
And in all their back porch rambles, Chris never once mentioned his wrestling coach had tits. It's distracting, like Sergeant Callahan levels of distracting, which was probably not only the point but also an outright fucking lie. As soon as Jensen's attention drifts, Chris curls in on himself trying to get some leverage and that's not helping a good god-damned bit because it makes Jensen feel like a girl, the way his knees press against Chris' hips, Chris' thighs twitching restlessly everywhere they meet his ass.   
  
Jensen can play the distraction game. He's a high roller.   
  
"Damn cocktease, you waitin'-" Chris starts, but Jensen doesn't give him a chance to finish.   
  
It's weird to be slipping his best friend tongue voluntarily, but Chris tastes like the Pabst he drinks for show and the Willet he drinks for real, smells of sweat and smoke and that weirdly citrus and cedar cologne he's worn the entire time Jensen's known him. Settled. Solid. Something like home.  
  
The fight goes out of Chris almost immediately, which makes sense somewhere in Jensen's slightly addled mind, because Chris would opt for sex over wrestling most any day. Instead of pushing at his chest Chris' hands slide around to his back, fingers digging in hard and possessively. Jensen's always known that in some very platonic way Chris believes he owns him, in the way Chris owns all his trusted friends. Once they get into his inner circle they're stuck there, and yet somehow that's something to be proud of.   
  
Now there's a physical possession too, threading through and under and nestling in perfectly next to the emotional baseline. It doesn't make it any less weird to have Chris groaning into Jensen's mouth, but it isn't inconceivable in its incongruity either.  
  
So he lets it just be. Kneeling on a bed, Chris laid out under him, his tongue down his throat. It isn't the explosion that he had way back when with Jeff, nor the manic electricity that Misha brings. It's arousing, his dick would never deny it, but it's also different, slow and learning, not the flare of a forest fire but coals banking on a hearth.  
  
The soft groans Chris is making into his mouth, the way his fingers clench at his back, they're hitting all Jensen's kinks. Ever so slowly building the pressure, forcing the heat up.   
  
The bed dips to the side of them and Jensen pulls back just enough to see Misha sitting on the edge, eyes locked on them intently. He'd almost forgotten Misha was in the room, just for a second there, wrapped up in the newness of Chris, and the guilt skitters down his spine unexpectedly.   
  
He catches his eye and Jensen can see the arousal pooling there, flickering and sparking in the wide black of his irises.   
  
Misha's voice is quiet. "Don't stop."  
  
***  
  
Jensen hesitates briefly, brow furrowed, lips pursed and parted, searching for something he must find, because he does as he's told - turns back to Chris in a slow sweep of uncoiling muscle and presses him into the mattress.  
  
Times like these Misha finds himself preoccupied with oddities like how much  _exactly_  he's had to drink. In the end he can't remember, but knows enough to realize his head should be swimming with sharks or fishes or possibly a rare breed of primordial amphibian. And with the pot chaser - yeah, this borderline lucidity honing him down to sharp, surgical edges makes his palms itch.  
  
Then again, being a grown-up tends to have a sobering effect on most people.  
  
Just not him.  
  
Fear grapples with reason in some remote part of his brain and even though he understands it's trying to parse explanations for him, Misha would rather not acknowledge them just yet. Meeting things head-on is something he prefers to do at his own pace, in his own time and on his own terms.  
  
This is none of those things.  
  
For all the beauty, the thrill of watching Jensen work Chris over with rough hands and perfunctory tugs of fabric, it puts an unexplained ache behind his ribs, one that stirs sentiments he hasn't entertained in years.  
  
At their basest level, they can be summed up as  _mine_.   
  
He's struggling, against his own mind, his own eyes. Misha will admit to the fight even if he won't acknowledge the side that is currently winning. Especially as he's the one that pulled Chris into this, more or less. Soothing feathers is something he's good at, too good as it turns out.   
  
And he is definitely the one that left Jensen on the bed and went and got Chris. Urged him without words to go and tend to his friend with exactly this scenario in mind. His idea of 'tending' is liberal enough to include sex, as is his idea of friendship.  
  
Clearly though, there's been a tactical error somewhere along the road he's been casually following, because suddenly his idea of 'friendship' as it relates to Jensen has taken a swerving tangent into the woods. Now Misha isn't sure exactly what it is at all, or what it was to begin with.   
  
It's all rather a lot to be trying to make sense of though, what with the weed, the alcohol, the dull ache of his cock in his pants. The fact that he hadn't known about Jeff and Jensen - a bit of knowledge that explains a fucking lot - and the fact that Chris clearly distrusts his intentions towards Jensen, with good reason as it turns out, doesn't make deciphering his feelings on the situation any easier.   
  
Misha watches Jensen bite down into Chris' bottom lip, pull it up between his teeth. It's something Jensen does to Misha, something Misha can't get enough of. It's strange, and uncomfortable, to be watching him do it to someone else, but he can't deny that it still hits him squarely in the center of his arousal, makes him whimper softly underneath Chris' much louder groan.  
  
The urge to touch is a palpable weight that puts a lump in Misha's throat he can't quite swallow around. He doesn't reach, doesn't lean, because it feels like an intrusion. It shouldn't. He realizes it shouldn't, that anything beyond the want  _should_  be unimportant, but he can't even convince himself.  
  
Chris' fingers flex against denim, and Misha can feel the rasp of it under his fingers, each ridge pressing its shape into his fingertips, the familiar curve of Jensen's ass against his palm. His breath catches without asking his permission to do so, the muscles in his shoulder shifting and tensing of their own accord; reaching. The tendons stretched through the bend of Jensen's neck go taut as he turns towards him and Misha snatches his hand back just in time.  
  
Jensen's eyes are glazed, hooded in shadow, his lips trying to wrap around words that won't do either of them a damn bit of good. Misha can't even fathom what they might be, but the fact that there are words is enough.  
  
He stares at Jensen.  
  
Jensen stares back.  
  
And there's nothing of their typical hum there, no inexorable energy or need for satiating that usually allows them to jump straight into each other. Nothing to ease the way back to normal, such as it is.   
  
Chris breaks the silence with a hard slap to Jensen's ass which makes them both startle. Chris gets both sets of eyes on him, which is apparently what he wanted. "Would you two pussies just feel each other up already? A man's gonna get arthritis waiting for you two women to get over your damned issues."   
  
Jensen turns slightly back towards Misha, rueful and amused from the corner of his eye. Misha feels a god damned tonne of weight lift from his shoulders and he grins. It's stupid, and he knows it, and apparently, Chris knows it too. His bitch-slap enough to remind Misha that Chris is just visiting, that Chris knows this. That he's here for another reason: stewardship sure, but also just a damn good time.   
  
Chris emphasizes that point with a buck up into Jensen, groin to groin, causing him to groan and tilt off-balance, flail an arm out and grab onto Misha's wrist. The jolt of electricity that skids up Misha's arm is enough to right the world. Pull everything back into place.   
  
He lurches forward to find Jensen's mouth like there was no problem in the first place.   
  
That shit can all come later.  
  
They end up in a tangle of limbs, Jensen's lips missing the mark by a fraction of an inch, his tongue landing warm and wet somewhere between cheek and chin, but then there's a hand cradling Misha's head, warm fingers firm and insistent. He can't even tell whose hand it is, but it guides him back, eases him where he needs to be in the midst of his half-blind fumbling.  
  
When he does finally find his footing, it's with his palm spread in the small of Jensen's back, Chris' fingers kneading gently at the base of his skull, both of them drawling nonsense words into the humid air between tongues. Misha presses up against Jensen's thigh, and the relief at having contact, at getting past the weirdness has him seeking more, thrusting lightly against Jensen's hip. It's still not enough, tightness coiling up his spine as he clutches against Jensen's skin fitfully, Chris pulling him in rough and tight, tongue thrust between lips and into his mouth.  
  
Chris' mouth is hot and tastes like Jensen; it's a taste that Misha knows well. He can sense Jensen leaning back, allowing room to tug at the buttons on Misha's shirt. If he weren't otherwise occupied, Misha thinks he might be inclined to help, but with Jensen's bare skin beneath his hands and Chris sucking on his tongue, he's fairly certain he has better things to concern himself with - namely getting everyone as naked as they can be as soon as humanly possible.  
  
Chris pulls back from his mouth with a wet smacking noise and murmurs, "Damn, Jensen, you sure know how to pick the good'uns." Which is so entirely counter to everything that has happened so far this evening as to be laughable, but Misha lets it go, basks in the chuckle that rumbles out of Jensen.  
  
Despite the heat of their bodies, the room is cooler once Jensen pushes his shirt back off his shoulders, and the sensation of skin meeting skin is enough to spur Misha into action, bring him full circle to where he was an hour ago - lost. He leans into Jensen, their shoulders nudging against one another across Chris' chest, and says, "Want you, Jen. Wanna fuck you."  
  
Jensen and Chris groan in unison and Misha is suddenly in a stereophonic porno, which makes him want to snicker, but he's too busy pushing Jensen backwards off of Chris, scrambling over Chris' legs to plaster himself against Jensen possessively. Misha fits into the space between Jensen's thighs easily, lets his eyelids droop and drift almost closed as Jensen's heel hooks around his calf and draws him flush.   
  
Chris grunts behind a sigh, huffs a bitter laugh. "I see how you are. Am I an accessory now? Like your fuckin' purse dog?"  
  
Conveniently, Chris hasn't pulled himself entirely back together, button already popped open, zip undone, jeans slung low across his hips and held in place by a whisper, a prayer, and the divine quirk of gravity. Misha heaves a belaboured sigh and reaches out blindly, hand smacking against Chris' belly with a  _thwack_  before he moves lower and finds the opening of his jeans.  
  
Chris' dick rides hot and heavy in the loose curl of his fist and Misha can't keep the grin from springing up when Chris' lashes flutter and he pulls a stuttered breath out of the air. It takes him a second to work out the logistics, shimmying down the bed, but when he does the reward comes in a sharp hiss between clenched teeth and a potentially dangerous twitch of Chris' hips as his lips close tight around the head and he paints saliva-slick patterns over skin. Just a taste. Enough.  
  
Jensen squirms beside them and his hand snakes down to rub against himself through his jeans. It's enough of an image for Misha to swing his focus back, change the plan and get to his feet. The sight of Jensen and Chris splayed out beneath him on the bed, like two abandoned dolls, one half naked and one with his cock out, only reaffirms the plan. Nakedness is absolutely required.  
  
He makes quick work of Jensen's fly, sliding it down and over the bulge in his pants. When he goes to pull the jeans down over Jensen's hips however, he finds help sorely lacking. Chris' tongue is back in Jensen's mouth like it lives there and Jensen's fumbling for Chris' cock, knocking his belt buckle aside with a clatter, before finding it and latching on. While Misha appreciates the view, it doesn't help with the strategy he's working on.   
  
"Lift your ass, Jensen," he mutters, and the smile that he sees Jensen grin into Chris' mouth at the rebuke makes him feel warm. Jensen dutifully pulls away from Chris' mouth, turns his attention on Misha, though he leaves his hand slowly stroking Chris. He pushes up on an elbow, lifting his pelvis off the mattress enough for Misha to slide the clothing over and down his legs.   
  
"Thank you," Misha says, dropping clothing in a puddle by the bed, rewarding Jensen's attention with a slide of his tongue against Jensen's newly freed erection.   
  
The moan that spills out between Jensen's lips is nothing short of animal, and Misha catches, holds his gaze, can see and feel the minuscule flutters that skitter through Jensen's abs like wildfire, and when he risks a look he finds Chris watching, reaching to thread his fingers between Jensen's where they wrap around his cock.  
  
Chris spits out a, "Shit," that goes on for three seconds too long before he inevitably breaks the eye contact.  
  
Misha takes the opportunity to service the interests of his mission, sliding sideways to grab at the nearest boot heel, tugging until it slides off and falls with a soft thump beside the bed. Jensen hums quietly, happily, and when Misha glances up Chris has found a use for his idle hand, arm splayed wide and fingers rolling, pinching gently at the tightening peak of Jensen's nipple.  
  
And  _Jesus_. He almost loses track of the point because they're lazily working each other up to something... but he wants. Misha pulls at the second boot heel impatiently and ends up with it kicked against his breastbone for his trouble. Chris stares down the line of his body at Misha, and Misha can see the uncomplicated hunger laid plain there, which is why it doesn't surprise him when Chris grins slow and easy and says, "Leave the boot. You promised me some fucking. Might wanna get on that."  
  
The bed creaks with the sudden flurry of motion, and then there are hands at his shoulders, hands fumbling his pants open and down with efficient movements, hands pushing, pulling, manhandling him into place until he wonders if one or both of them secretly belong to the same genus as the octopus.   
  
He's blissfully naked and slip-sliding between them, Jensen at his front, mouth latching onto his throat and a hand sneaking in between them, holding heat-hard flesh against his own. Chris is sandwiched in tight behind him, cock dragging cool trails of pre-come against the base of his spine, the rasp of denim rough against the back of his thighs.  
  
How it suddenly became him in the middle of all this Misha doesn't know, but he isn't going to complain about it, not when it goes further than he wants to admit to soothing the worry in the pit of his stomach. His world narrows down to the shuddery slide of his cock against Jensen's, the fingers wrapped around him, and Chris' mouth as it bites and breathes hot against his nape.   
  
Only he knows he isn't going to last. How could he, given the situation? He's already starting to stutter into Jensen's grip, and as much as he wants to let go, let it all go and spill this whole messy situation between them, he wants more. He extricates himself, ignores the whimpering wanting sound that Jensen makes and the grunt of annoyance from Chris.  
  
"Hush, children. Patience is a virtue."   
  
He leaves them momentarily, ducking into the en suite and coming back victorious. Bless Jensen and his everlasting need to provide southern hospitality, hand cream included.  
  
Chris is murmuring soft words in Jensen's ear, quiet enough that Misha can't make them out, but Jensen's closed eyes and soft smile indicate their nature. Even in the middle of fucking, Chris is gonna make damn sure that Jensen is okay. Misha has to respect that shit, hell he may even have to like the guy for it. Of course, at the sudden blinking open of Jensen's eyes to bore into Misha's as he settles back on the bed, it occurs to him that it's just as likely that what Chris is saying is downright pornographic.   
  
And the look tells him enough. Some people might feel threatened by it, lesser men, meaner men ripe with the kind of jealousy that never comes to any good. But that's not who Misha is, and Jensen's eyes find  _him_  first, maybe even best in the darkness, and he can't really figure out what to do with the swell in his chest except try and fail to deny it.  
  
Jensen's gaze doesn't skirt off into the middle distance when Chris reaches down and hooks a hand behind his knee to hike it up, doesn't waver at all when Misha flips the cap on the moisturizer open and slathers his fingers liberally. So he gets to see Jensen's eyes roll back with the press and push, gets to watch those soot dark lashes fold against his cheeks.  
  
The breath Jensen heaves shudders out of him in a rush and Misha smiles because he loves watching this, loves being the one who gets to do it - carving Jensen into his need with nothing but hands and mouth. Secretly, Misha hopes there will never come a day he's not surprised by the heat and the greedy little noises Jensen makes when he's really gone.   
  
Before long, Jensen pulls his other knee up to plant his heel, needing leverage to push back onto the crook of Misha's fingers working him slowly open. Misha's so intently focused on flutter of eyelashes and the cut of Jensen's teeth caught in his lower lip that he's not ready for the jerk of Jensen's hips when Chris wraps a hand around his cock and finds a rhythm. Less ready than that for the long whine Jensen makes, the heated look Chris flicks his way before he starts sucking color onto Jensen's collarbone.   
  
The look goes straight to Misha's cock, makes it jerk obscenely against his stomach. Given that he didn't think he was invested in the situation other than in a 'doing things to Jensen' way, it's an interesting development. One he isn't going to have time to follow though because if he doesn't fuck Jensen now he's possibly going to just lay down and die. The way Jensen is rocking himself back onto Misha's fingers, up into Chris' hand, his mouth open and hissing out breaths is more than enough to clue him in that Jensen is ready to go with him on this point.   
  
Misha slides his fingers away, reaches for the discarded hand cream and lathers himself up, then he's pulling at Jensen's hips, up over the the bend of his knees and sliding in, slow inch by inch to the sound of Jensen groaning and Chris muttering, "Fuck. Yes."   
  
And then he's there, buried in the familiar frisson of heat, the hot press of Jensen's thighs to either side of his waist. It's too much, and he has to pause, has to wait with his eyes closed tight for just a second.  
  
Until Jensen growls low, "Fuck, Misha.  _Move_ ," and presses into his shoulder blades, moving himself down the bed and harder onto Misha's cock. It should be more than normal, more than familiar, but with the way Chris is pumping at Jensen's cock and Jensen is trying to fuck himself up and back at the same time the dynamic is all wrong. It's startlingly new and different and Misha can only hold onto Jensen's hip and thigh and hope to all that's holy that he can hang on.   
  
Eventually they manage to find a slapdash rhythm that halfway works, and when Misha leans into it to snap his hips with Chris' down stroke, he feels rough knuckles scrape across the soft skin just below his navel. It sends skittering little sparks spinning over his nerve endings, and he can't bite back the moan that feels like it originates somewhere in his fucking toes.The next time he pushes in, he bottoms out, hears himself do it with the wet slap of skin against skin. Jensen arches up into it, back bowed until Misha could swear the only things holding him together are their hands on him.   
  
It's too fucking much.  
  
Whatever pattern they found gets lost in translation, need eating up the last of his conscious thought and Jensen's hands fist into the cotton comforter. Misha can only assume that Chris manages to keep up, but he's paralyzed by not caring very much, focused as he is on the frantic rock of Jensen's hips. Somewhere in the near distance he hears Chris breathing hard, can make out the quiet little  _fucks_ he's pushing out on the air then the low, slow murmurs he spills across Jensen's skin. Nonsense, all of it, but the fingers ridging across his stomach pick up their pace and he answers. Chasing, chasing, chasing until Jensen chokes off a yelp and he feels the dam break. Jensen's muscles lock down, thighs clamping around his waist, stealing the breath from his lungs, Jensen's release warm and wet striping over his belly. But it's not until Jensen's heel presses against his skin and draws him deeper, not until Jensen rasps out another, "Fuck," with his name tacked on the end that Misha lets go.  
  
His fingers dig into Jensen's flesh, skin whitening around his grip as he spills into him in a glorious rush of release. His vision swims a little before his eyes as he goes light-headed and his muscles freeze tight. He isn't one for screaming out names, though he's all for others doing it for him, but the whimpering noise he can't stop seems to do it for Jensen, he hears the murmured,  _christ_ , even as he sees the words form on Jensen's lips, and yet he can't quite sync the two together in his brain, like some badly dubbed foreign film.  
  
And then he's falling, unraveling from his knees and onto Jensen's chest, pushing Jensen's thighs down as he goes, lungs heaving and liquid heat suffusing his muscles from his scalp to his toes. He feels himself slip out of Jensen as he moves, another slippery slide of electricity down his nerves.   
  
There's come slicking between them, coating and sticking, but he can't seem to care, pressing his face into the crook of Jensen's throat and just breathing him in. Jensen's arm comes up around his back and squeezes him tight, at least Misha thinks he feels it anyway. And then there's the lazy slide of gentle fingertips tracing up his spine.   
  
They're quiet a moment, but Misha is keenly aware that Chris has not gotten off yet, and is not going to be happy about that fact. The seconds tick down towards a smart-assed remark and demand for a blow job. The silence doesn't fit though, and Misha pulls back, turns his head to see.  
  
Chris is staring at them, eyes full of lust, but there's something else winding its way within the murky depths. Something Chris probably doesn't realise he's telegraphing like a lighthouse in a summer storm. It takes Misha by surprise, which is disconcerting, because he tries not to let that happen. So when Chris leans forward and presses his lips to Misha's in something that can only be described as reminiscent of  _sweet_ , well that just shocks the shit out of him.  
  
Even so, he's always prided himself in being able to adapt. His life is built around a constantly morphing cage of flexible fibers, and this is no different. He  _knows_  Jensen and should have known better than to assume. At the end of the day, they're all simply wearing other people for money and sometimes it gets hard to shed the borrowed skins. Sometimes they creep into your bones. Sometimes they keep you safe.  
  
He's careful to keep his eyes open when he kisses Chris back, wants to figure out what it is he's hiding from because Misha's never met a mystery he doesn't want to pick apart. But Chris' eyelids slide closed and whisk away the chance before he's able to take advantage.  
  
Still.  
  
He looks to Jensen for confirmation, his face closer than it should be and a little blurry in his periphery, but the expression he's wearing is strange too, some blend of fondness and sorrow that Misha will just have to work through in the morning if either of them lets him. It doesn't make sense. Either way, Chris needs something, even if he won't ask for it. So Misha combs his fingers back through the lank, sweat-damp strands of Chris' hair fanned wild across the bed, and hangs on tight, grounds him with the slow, teasing sweeps of tongue and the press of fingertips across the back of his neck.  
  
Jensen moves then, a deliberately exaggerated sort of slide like he's trying to keep from spooking a colt that hasn't been broken quite yet, and Misha thinks maybe that's where Chris is but can't tell for sure. Misha can feel the head-to-toe jerk as Jensen wraps his hand around Chris' dick because he almost gets his tongue bitten in the process.   
  
Then the world rights itself and Christian Kane is back, the kiss curling into Misha's mouth with an intensity and heat that had been missing a split-second back. Which is fine, Misha will take the mask if he has to, it only reinforces that there's much more for him to unearth another time. He'll even play along. Misha slips a free hand in between himself and Jensen, slides his fingers through the mess and pull them back, wet and glistening. Mainly he just wants to know if Chris will go there, will let him.   
  
He's pleased to find that he does, Chris' mouth opening obediently as Misha touches fingertips to lips. Chris' mouth is hot and his tongue flickers against Misha's fingers, sucking and cajoling Jensen's taste off them. If Misha hadn't just come, he'd definitely have been doing so right about now.   
  
Chris pushes himself forward on his side, chest coming up against Misha and Jensens' sides where they're still pressed together. Jensen's fist is trapped between them, hot against Misha's hip and he can feel the head of Chris' cock nudge against him as it slides through the circle of Jensen's fingers, soft but hard. Misha urges Chris up the bed, realigning until the head of his cock slips into the crevice made between the come slick skin of Misha's belly flushed against Jensen's and Chris starts stuttering his hips forward in earnest, fucking himself in between their stomachs and Jensen's hand.  
  
Chris throws an arm over Misha's back, grabs hard to his ribcage and throws himself into it, thrusting once, twice and groaning the " _Fuck_ " louder than he should as he goes still and breathless then spills. Jensen shivers beneath Misha, and closes his eyes, which for some reason Misha finds insanely reasonable. Chris collapses onto his back unashamedly, come dripping down Jensen's hip to meet the mattress beneath them. Misha admires the sight of Chris, open and sated, for a moment before turning his attention back to Jensen.   
  
In the silence, Misha can hear the uneven ebb and flow of air out of Jensen's lungs, even though he's trying to hide it. His skin thrums with it, a pulse throbbing everywhere they're flushed together, the tips of Jensen's lashes fluttering wildly even as he fights to maintain the illusion of peace. And he  _knows_  where Jensen is, doesn't have to ask, has been there once or twice before himself. This leap never comes easy and Jeff probably only made things worse. Before he can even think to stop himself Misha stilts up on an elbow and sighs. He tries not to think about where his hands have been when he smooths the furrow between Jensen's eyebrows flat and drops a kiss against each lowered lid. In the moment, he can't decide himself whether it's simple gratitude or something more complicated that drives it.   
  
All he knows for certain is that he feels a sudden overwhelming urge to have this, have Jensen more often when he's stripped bare and defenseless. Not that the mostly mindless fucking was bad, it wasn't. Not that he's going to go home and dig the letterman jacket he never owned anyway out of some mothball-scented chest, he's not.   
  
There are lots of in-betweens left in that spectrum though, and he's interested to see where they might land if given the chance. This was not what he bargained for when he followed Jeff up the stairs, not by a long shot. Still. Happy accidents.  
  
Chris grunts, an exhausted worn-through sound that Misha can totally sympathize with, and Jensen's eyes snap open wide, cut through with shadows and shades of worry. And fuck him to hell and back, but Misha has never been able to handle that. It was what had hooked him, even though he knew - still knows with startling certainty - that Jensen is  _not_  Dean. The first time Dean leveled Castiel with that hopelessly vulnerable, lost look was the same night Misha asked Jensen if he wanted to go get a beer after they wrapped for the day.  
  
He hates and loves it in equal parts and can't help trying to kiss it away, replace it with that easy smile.  
  
Chris groans, louder this time, and Misha feels the bed shimmy beneath him, and the draft that accompanies the loss of Chris' warmth stretched out beside them. Pointless to look though, so Misha doesn't; he's busy.  
  
"Aww, fuck. I'll leave you two to your - whatever the hell this is. Try not to grow tits while I'm gone."  
  
Misha hears the metallic swipe of Chris' jeans being zipped back up, feels the bed dip once more as Chris braces against it and presumably pulls on his abandoned boot. Then he stops paying attention, because he has Jensen underneath him, who is kissing him with soft little brushes of his mouth. It's not something he wants to stop any time soon. So he goes with that too, like he's gone with everything else this strange and confusing night has thrown at him. Lets Jensen kiss him, and kisses him back, soft and teasing and new.  
  
* * *  
  
Eventually, they manage to get cleaned up and head back downstairs. The music has started to mellow and a good portion of people have left, but there's still a decent amount milling about. It's only a matter of time before someone gets a guitar out. He'd lay bets on it being Steve.   
  
Misha says something about finding a roasted slab of herbivore to chew on and disappears towards the balcony where a few of Jensen's die-hard Texan friends are manfully wrangling the barbecue.   
  
There's no sign of Jeff, but Jensen wasn't expecting that there would be.   
  
Chris drifts up behind him, the clatter of his old Okie shit kickers against hardwood giving him away. Well, that and the shoulder knocked against his, the cold bottle of Red Stripe pressed against his palm without so much as a howdy.  
  
"The puppy called," Chris says without preamble.  
  
Jensen snorts. "Okay, Icarus is smart as fuck, but I'm not drunk enough to think he can slip the kennel and dial a phone."   
  
"Don't be a bitch, Jen."  
  
Jensen sighs and lets his gaze wander out beyond the patio door, tells himself this is  _not_  the reason he set up camp here. Really. He was, still is, fucking starving and the lazy lean against the kitchen island leaves him in close proximity to the ravaged remains of both crudite and apple salad. Beer works too, will always work.   
  
Can't say he minds the view though, watching Misha charm the chaps off the boys from back home, the sly cut of his grin as he regales them with who the fuck knows what kind of story. There's a bright burst of drunken laughter that makes Jensen think they may be entertaining the boys in blue after all, but Misha catches him looking, fires off one of those surreptitious winks, and suddenly the volume gets turned down on - hell, everything.  
  
"Christ, are you even listening?" Chris asks, annoyed.   
  
"Yeah. Puppy. What puppy?"   
  
Out on the patio, Misha takes a long pull of beer, throat working around the swallows evenly. When he tips the bottle back down, he catches Jensen's eye and gives his lips a slow, suggestive lick.   
  
 _Jesus_.  
  
"Jared, you lovestruck dumbass," Chris says and smacks him soundly on the back of the head, "Called to bitch you out for throwing this when you knew he had to be elsewhere. Why I was looking for you."  
  
"Oh. Well, it's too late to call him back now," Jensen responds quickly. Even though it really isn't - Chris won't know that. It's not a conversation he's ready to have with Jared, because even from fourteen hundred odd miles away the big dork will be able to tell something's up  
  
"No shit."  
  
Chris bumps past him, and Jensen considers it an end to their conversation. Five seconds later, he's already distracted again, trying to decide whether to drag himself out onto the balcony and make moon-eyes at Misha some more or head into the den to fuck with Steve and retain some small shred of his dignity.  
  
That's why he almost misses when Chris turns back, his lips pressed down to a thin line like he doesn't want to say what he's about to, but does anyway.  
  
"It's good, y'know."  
  
Which is as close to approval as he's likely to get out of Chris, so Jensen just nods, "Yeah, I know."  
  
Chris slaps him hard on the shoulder, officially back to being men again, and steals back the beer with a grin before disappearing into the back.   
  
In the end he doesn't have to head out onto the balcony with his dignity in tatters, because Misha comes to him. And he brings beer and meat.  
  
"He okay?" Misha asks, nodding his head at Chris' back.   
  
"Seems to be, yes."   
  
Misha looks contemplative. "I didn't really get it before, you know?"  
  
"Most people don't," Jensen answers, assuming that he probably means Christian. He takes a swig of the beer Misha offers him. "But there's a reason the girls stay until breakfast the next morning."   
  
Misha snorts. "So i'm finding out."   
  
Jensen wonders how deep that curiosity goes, and any other time he'd leave well enough alone, but tonight he decides to tempt fate. He's still alive, after all. "Thinking of learning more?"  
  
Misha turns to him, and the look he's giving him is so completely earnest that it sort of makes Jensen's chest constrict. "Not really. I have other questions in mind."  
  
"Good ones I hope," Jensen tries for nonchalant.   
  
Misha's solemnity splits into a smile. "It's possible they're spectacular ones."   
  
As it turns out, Jensen just might be okay with that.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
